At that moment Shan was directly in front of us with the wire dangling from her ear and a decided bounce to her step. This triggered an idea that surfaced as a good bet.
“Well,” I said, “I have a new theory, but I’ll reserve it for now.”
“Hate to be wrong,” Alice said, looking back at me over her shoulder, “don’t you, James.”
I couldn’t think of a clever retort, but Joe did. Oh, she really is delightful isn’t she? She is able to state exactly what you dislike without the benefit of any physical link like we have.
I didn’t repeat his thoughts.
CHAPTER 9
We walked six rows over then turned right on the avenue for about eight more blocks before we arrived at the theater. It proved to be a large, half bowl carved out of the bedrock. The only portion above ground level was the top of the clamshell that loomed over an average sized stage.
“The seating reminds me of an ancient Greek theater,” Amy said, “except for the clamshell behind the stage.”
“I’ll bet the acoustics are phenomenal,” Alice said. “Wait here, you guys and I’ll check the sound system.”
We were, at that moment, standing at the top edge of the half circle. The seats, carved out of the solid rock, reminded me of the crater we saw on the planet Rust, only on a much smaller scale. There were four stair steps spaced evenly around the big arc and Alice took the nearest one, two at a time. When she reached the bottom she went to the center of the circular stage, struck a pose and looked up at us. “Forsooth me hearties,” she said, without raising her voice, “can thee hearest me?”
“Loud and clear,” M1 said.
“What?” she replied. “Speak up, please.”
“I said, loud and clear,” M1 shouted. “I guess the acoustics just work one way. We’ll be right down.”
It took us about a minute to make the trip.
“I think this place could hold maybe three thousand concert goers.” Harry said, as we descended. “I hope they were wise enough to bring pillows.”
We joined Alice at center stage and looked around.
“Very impressive,” Amy said, “but it’s as clean and empty as the rest of the city. I wish they had put up signs or posters.”
“All is not lost just yet, Amy,” M2 said. “There’s an archway on either side of the clam shell. This place has a backstage area we should take a look at.”
The area was one large room carved out of the solid rock behind the clamshell. Both archways entered the same space.
“At last,” Alice exclaimed, “someone left something besides empty rooms.”
The somethings were a line of what looked like four drawer file cabinets, a rack of fifty or sixty folding chairs and pile of folded metal rods. I picked up one and soon had a spindly music stand on display.
“James,” Alice said, “you have a satisfied look on your face. I guess this stuff fits your theory.”
“It does, quite nicely,” I said, “but before I say anything, let's have a look in those file cabinets.”
With all of us pulling drawers, it took us no time at all to determine every drawer was completely empty.
“Okay, James,” M1 said, “we’ve had a look. Now how about you tell us what’s on your mind?”
“Almost there,” I said to him, “but first I’d like you and M2 to do me a favor and give this room a proper FBI search.”
“That we can do,” M1 said. “The rest of you grab a folding chair and have a seat, but as you do be sure to look closely at the whole assembly. See if there are any labels or maybe some gum stuck under the seat. In fact, why don’t you all pitch in and examine every chair then do the same for the rack.”
With that the two M’s turned their attention to the file cabinets. They pulled out each drawer and examined all sides. When all four drawers were out, they used their flashlights to examine the interior. Meanwhile the chair crew got busy and the place became very quiet except for the sounds of sliding drawers and chairs unfolding.
“Found something,” M2 called out from a kneeling position in front of the fourth cabinet. “This was behind the bottom drawer. It looks like a little block of amber in a box, but the top is missing.” He turned it over as we approached. “Holy cats,” there’s printing on the bottom and it’s not wavy lines. It’s every day English.”
“What’s it say?” Amy asked.
“High quality handmade rosin for string instruments.”
“Oh,” Shan said, “I’d love to hear somebody play them in person instead of only hearing the recordings.”
“Perhaps,” said Bob, “someone could perform here. It would be wonderful.”
Alice looked at me and raised a brow.
“Yes,” I said, “this fits like a glove, but we need to finish the search. This is like going into court to present a case. One needs all of the ammo one can gather.”
The boys returned to the file cabinets and the rest of us finished the chair examination with negative results, then we sat down to watch. They found nothing more inside the cabinets, but the boys hadn’t quite finished. One at a time they pulled the cabinets away from the wall and tipped each one over to check the bottom. As they pulled out the last one, M2 found one more significant item.
“Well, well,” he said, while picking up something quite small. “Apparently they had some bad habits on Enigma.”
In his hand he held a flattened packet that had at one time been full of Camel cigarettes.
“Nora smoked those things,” Harry said. “It was about her only vice. I remember she had a certain way of opening her pack. In addition to tearing off the top part, she would nibble away some of the sides to make it easier to extract the smokes.”
“You mean like this?” said M2, as he displayed the packet.
There it was. He had smoothed it out some to show the whole pack with some of its sides torn away, just as Harry described. We studied the artifact in silence while we considered all the possibilities.
Amy was the first to find her voice. “We finished our quest to find Mary. Could it be we are now on the trail to find Nora as well as Carl? Wouldn’t that be beyond fabulous? I mean in a serious way.”
“Sure it would, kiddo,” M1 said, “but don’t get too excited. Even if she did leave this here, she did it before you were born and she wasn’t the only smoker to tear away the top of the pack.”
“But faint trails are our specialty, are they not?” she countered. “Uncovering things from the recent and distant past is what we do best.”
By that time Harry was on his feet. “Listen to me, kids. This may be grabbing at straws, but this is the first straw I’ve seen in years. I’ll be grabbing it with both fists.”
“I’m with you, my friend,” Alice said. “This is too important and too interesting. We must find the Nazis, find Carl and find Nora. I don’t know if we’re making progress but we’re certainly making more missions. I vote that we add to our schedule the quest to find Nora. All in favor say nicotine.”
We did as we were told and that made it official. The hunt was on.
“Anyway, I’m glad whoever cleaned out this room was just a little bit careless,” I said. “This nails it, I think and now I’m ready to reveal my theory.”
“First I’ll tell you what,” I said, “then I’ll tell you why. The one thing I don’t know is the identity of the people who actually ran this place and maintained the operation on Earth. I have a suspicion it was not the Primes, but it will have to remain a suspicion for now. I feel sure that whoever ran this theater and maybe all of Tiberius were busy on Earth, gathering our music. They probably also collected art, literature, examined our history, studied our cultures and maybe exported some of our fine Scotch whiskey, but it’s the music, for sure. For example, I give you Shan’s and the other Prime’s reaction to all forms of Earth’s music.” I turned to Bob. “What’s your opinion of the music?”
“It is most wonderful,” he said. “You must know that I am not nearly as expressive a
s our Shan.”
I gave him a pat on his back. “You all know the value of art on our home planet. If we were highly advanced and had mastered space travel, wouldn’t we explore other planets and import things we value? I love good music, but I have a notion the music of Earth is quite a bit better than most.”
“But why the secrecy?” Alice asked. “Why did they elect to take certain things and remain unknown?”
“If they had come to Earth and did the ‘Take me to your leader’ thing,” I said, “it would have changed everything and our societies and civilizations would have taken some different tack. The idea, in my opinion, was to watch us in secrecy and observe our development. I imagine somewhere there is a very interesting record of Earth for the past few thousand years, just as Moses had video of ancient Egypt.”
I sat back and waited for reactions.
Alice rolled her eyes to the sky. “Should we find recordings from ancient Earth, I would hope that our leaders would be very cautious about revealing the contents. Information like that could start any number of wars.”
We all gave her an upturned thumb.
“Incredible,” Bebe said.
“It all fits,” Harry said. “This theater is an admirable operation. They were busy for a long time exporting mostly intellectual properties from Earth to here and in this instance we Earthlings were none the worse for it. It you have to be a thief, that’s the way to go. Of course we don’t know the whole of what they were up to. And by the way, Nora played a mean violin.”
“Now we’re back to Tiberius and the Bermuda Triangle,” Amy said. “I wonder if the ones we’re looking for were responsible for all of those disappearances—if so, maybe they’re not so benign.”
“I’ll buy your theory, James,” M1 added. “What’s next on your list?”
“I guess we can go on to the southeast station and report in,” I said. “But before we depart, why don’t we have Shan tell Blue to sniff out this room?”
M1 looked at Shan with raised eyebrows. She called Blue to her side, gave him his instructions and the pooch went to work. He circled the entire room then went to a blank wall space to the right of the file cabinets, sat down, looked at Shan and said, “Something.”
“Great call, James,” Alice said. “Now go find out what it is.”
“I need my lucky charm with me,” I said.
I took Bebe’s hand and we stepped over to the blank wall.
Together we examined the wall, which was entirely uniform and blank. The exception was a bump on one side. There were no buttons, just the bump.
“Joe,” I said aloud, “any ideas on how this works?”
“It does look like a call device, but there are no emanations. I’m afraid I cannot be of assistance. It does not resemble in any way that image that caused Carl to disappear.”
“Gather around, folks,” I said. “This looks like a tough one and I need help.”
We all took a turn touching the bump, but it remained a neutral part of the wall. I tried my clicker with the same result. We were up a stump and were ready to give it a temporary pass, but just as we were shouldering our packs, Amy had an idea. “If it’s a musical note that activates that thing, it will be a middle C because if they were playing music from Earth, the orchestra would tune to that note. Joe, can you give the bump a middle C?”
“Of course I can,” he said, “James, please go back to the device.”
I returned to the wall and my second button gave forth with a clear, steady note for about two seconds. The wall shimmered and faded to reveal a large, round hole. The light was dim, but there was enough for us to see racks of musical instruments. The flashlights clicked on to reveal a large room, crammed with a complete orchestra’s worth of Earth type instruments.
“Well, well, well,” Shan said. “Mind if I say creepy deepy? This time it’s for Amy. Some of James’s magic seems to have rubbed off.”
Amy looked around. “Based on what I see, these instruments are not all that old. They most certainly can’t be thousands of years old—a few hundred at most, but my guess is some are less than one hundred.” She leaned in for a closer look. “See here, along the side is a mash-up of broken instruments. Not just broken—completely and deliberately destroyed. They look incredibly ancient, the Emperor Nero could have used some of these.”
“Here’s a wild guess,” Harry said. “This place was run by the original owners who took a powder a half century ago. Then here come the Nazis who for some reason smashed the old stuff. Why? you ask. Who the hell knows?”
“Wild is right, Harry,” Alice said, “but I can’t think of anything better. Our timeline guesses need some further examination.”
“Okay,” M2 said, “so this place is occupied for thousands of years. Even after the fall of the other planets, it apparently remained at least partially occupied. Then the Nazis start arriving and within a few years the whole place is abandoned? That can’t be a coincidence can it?”
M1 picked up a violin bow. “This, along with the rosin and cigarette pack means someone occupied Enigma up to about forty or so years ago. I think this is why things seem to be in such good shape, the blue trolley line, janitors and all that. I think we’re done here. Let’s get some pictures and have Blue sniff out the orchestra room. It’s late in the day and we have things to do.”
We departed, leaving the storage room door open. Once at ground level, we discovered it was late in the day. The sun was low on the horizon and long shadows created a dramatic panorama to the east.
“Time to hustle, gang,” M1 said. “We can reach the southeast station before dark. We’ll find out where it takes us and we can call in our report. After that we can take the blue line back to Grand Central, but we must now go for a jog.”
Trotting along with a full pack put a damper on casual conversation, but I noticed that no one in the Band, including me, was out of breath at the end of our run. Of course Jesus, who rode flopped on Alice’s shoulder the entire way, remained aloof and regal, even in his awkward position.
CHAPTER 10
We went directly to the portal building and on to the new location. We found ourselves high in the Atlas Mountains of Africa, where the low temperature turned our sweat to ice. Alice placed her call and the director picked up after the first ring.
“Alice, my dear,” he said, “ready to surprise us with yet another revelation?”
“As it happens,” she replied, “we do have two items that should interest you.”
“I’m alone right now. Let me punch the record button.” We heard the click. “Go ahead.”
“Yes, James had another revelation and this one’s a doozy.” By this time we were all bunched together against the bitter breeze, guys on the outside and the gals in the center. “Do you have the latest aerial maps from Major Alton?” she asked.
“Yes, they came in about an hour ago.”
“Refer to the stadium-like structure on the avenue to the east of the central square.”
“Yes, I see it. It could be some type of theater.”
“It’s an open air concert venue, sir. We went there and discovered musical instruments, manufactured on Earth. James’s theory is that up until maybe forty or fifty years ago, some beings from Enigma were busy importing the music of Earth and probably our other forms of art.”
“What?” The director said. “I thought the Primes lost their hold on all of these planets hundreds and maybe thousands of years ago. This goes counter to what Moses believes and what YDRII has told us. There are huge gaps in the story so far. Do you think the Nazis have anything to do with this?” We heard him sigh. “Anyway, are you positive you found things from Earth?”
“I don’t know about the Nazis, sir, but unless Camel cigarettes were sold here then yes we are certain this stuff comes from Earth.”
“I’m a believer. This could be helpful. The mysterious ‘they’ wanted our art. Is it your opinion the Primes did this?”
“At this juncture we just don’t k
now. Another complication is that we also found some ancient instruments in the same room. They were all destroyed. We’re sending you a report and some pictures. Finally, Joe says we are in the Atlas Mountains. It’s a cave with six more saucers.”
“I know,” the director said. “We have a fix on your position, but I can hear the shiver in your voice so I’ll let you get back to Enigma. You all are doing a wonderful job, but I believe I’ve said that before. Incidentally, tell James I’ve been corresponding with Molly Watson. It’s been like at first tweet. She seems to be a most interesting person.”
Alice looked at me with an arched eyebrow. “Tell her James says hello and now M2 will send you some photos and our report.”
“Very good, my dear. Now, go get warm.”
Bebe was looking at me with a completely blank face. This was more worrisome than an outright frown.
M2 quickly uploaded his files and we hurried back to evening on Enigma.
By the time the trolley arrived to take us to Grand Central, the arm flapping had stopped and our body temperatures were back to normal. Blue was pestering Shan for some Spam and that turned our attention to food. Alice called ahead to IHOO and told them to fire up the grill and get ready to feed a hungry crew.
While we ate, the Colonel introduced us to a new crew of seven that he assigned to bring in our supplies. Amy stopped chewing long enough to name them the Red Ball Express.
PART 2
CHAPTER 11
Over dessert, a cool breeze sprang up and Joe informed us we might expect rain within the hour. When Fran heard this, she gathered her crew to move the drone equipment to the shelter of Grand Central. As she was leaving she told Alice and M1 she had some new and interesting maps to show us. We made arrangements to meet as soon as she had her operation set up.
LOST AND FORGOTTEN: BOOK THREE - ENIGMA Page 7